


Figment

by orphan_account



Series: Post-Sburb [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Gen, Implied Relationships, Post-Sburb/Sgrub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:30:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You aren’t Jade Harley. Jade Harley doesn’t exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Figment

Everyone tells you what a vivid imagination you have, and you smile and laugh with them. You let them change the subject because you don’t want to dwell on the sights and sounds swirling in your head. It would probably help if you kept these things to yourself, but you can’t fight the desire to tell someone about your dreams.

You don’t tell them about your nightmares.

When they talk about your wild imagination, you feel safe and secure. Yes, it was just a dream. Yes, it was just a silly fantasy. No, there is nothing wrong with you.

Your friends laugh and ask you if your funny little grey people have done anything interesting lately. You say no—not because they haven’t, but because the dreams aren’t very funny or fun anymore.

Everything is rainbows and sunshine; A bright spectrum of flowing blood and a massive sun that burns behind your eyes as you dream.

You’re going insane, aren’t you?

You’ve considered getting help. Perhaps you have a mental condition that is causing these delusions. Perhaps there’s something that can be done to make them stop. Therapy, or a pill.

You’ve considered it. Over and over, you’ve considered it—but you never do seek help do you? You never look for a solution.

You don’t want your “problem” to be solved. You want to keep having the nightmares, and that scares you.

You thought you saw your brother last week. You recognized him immediately and your heart almost ripped in two. You very nearly chased after him. One thought held you back:

You don’t have a brother. You’re an only child.

Yet his name echoed in your head:

_John. John!_

_  
_John.

Sometimes you look at your parents and they almost feel like  _strangers_. Sometimes someone asks about your family and you forget the photo in your wallet and start in about your beloved grandfather who raised you from infancy, and your dog who was more best friend than pet.

Your paternal grandfather died two years before you were born, your maternal grandfather passed when your mother was eight. You’re allergic to dogs.

Yet the figure of an elderly man with a well groomed mustache and a big white dog is the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions “family”.

Some days all you want to do is sleep, and it doesn’t matter that all you have are nightmares anymore. You want to cling to that world in your dreams because with each passing day it feels more real than the world you must eventually wake in.

Because you see these people in your dreams and you know that you love them. You love the brother you don’t have. You love the girl who knits. You love the boy who hangs out with crows. You love the frightened, angry grey boy with the little candy-corn horns.

You love them and they aren’t real. You love them and they’re dying, over and over, every time you close your eyes—but they aren’t real.

You don’t know who you are anymore. You aren’t the same person when you dream. They call you by a different name, these people that you love.

They call you Jade.

You want to be Jade. You want to be in that world. You want to be the girl they know. You aren’t.

Your friends have stopped asking about your dreams. Your friends haven’t spoken to you much at all lately. Your parents are worried. They want you to come home. They want you to get help. They want their daughter back.

You want your life back. You want “Jade Harley” back—but how can you get back what you never had? You were never Jade Harley—Jade Harley is a figment of your imagination.

Jade Harley who had a loving grandpa and the best friend a girl could have, who had a goofy bucktoothed brother and friends that would go through hell and back for her— friends she would do the same for— Jade Harley who loved and was loved and might even have been in love…

She isn’t real.

So when you see a young man about your age waiting at the bus stop—a young man that doesn’t look quite right without grey skin and nubby horns peeking out from black hair—you don’t call out to him. You don’t look at him. You decide to walk around the block and catch the next bus.

You pretend your heart hasn’t dropped into your stomach. Because that isn’t your friend. That’s a stranger.

You only stop for a moment when someone calls the name of the girl who isn’t real.

You aren’t Jade Harley and he must have been calling out to someone else.

Your knees aren’t shaking. Tears aren’t dripping down your cheeks. You aren’t Jade Harley and nobody is calling that name, chasing desperately after you.

You aren’t breaking down in public and that isn’t your friend crying with you as you both kneel on the cracked, cold pavement. You aren’t calling him “Karkat” and he isn’t calling you “Jade” and passerby aren’t staring at you as you cling to each other and weep.

You aren’t Jade Harley. You can’t be Jade Harley. You’ve been someone else for too long.

You aren’t Jade Harley, but you were once.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic can also be found here: http://whatevertheheckles.tumblr.com/post/18864399208/figment


End file.
